Earlier this month, chef Jennifer Jasinski and longtime business partner, Beth Gruitch, announced that they would be closing one of their four celebrated Denver restaurants and would “pass the baton” at two others. But the pair will hold onto Larimer Square’s Rioja, which was their first restaurant. “We’re not dead yet,” Jasinski laughed as she referenced to describe the newest phase of her lauded 25-year-plus career in Denver.
But , while French staple Bistro Vendome and the elegant, Iberian-flavored Ultreia will both be taken over restaurateurs who have worked with Jasinski and Gruitch at their umbrella company, Crafted Concepts. The news came around the same time that several other well-known or upscale Denver restaurants, including , , and , have shuttered. But for Gruitch and Jasinski, the move has been a long time coming.
“The pandemic beat the crap out of us,” said Jasinski, a James Beard Award winner and “Top Chef Masters” finalist who has trained legions of chefs over the decades. “It aged me a lot. It put us through the wringer.
It felt like 10 years in two-and-a-half years.” “A lot of people had time off, and meanwhile Jen and I and a couple of the executive teams are running around, and trying to do to-go, and pivot, and reinvent ourselves,” Gruitch added about the chaos that overtook the restaurant industry at the time. “It was hard.
It was really hard. It was really hard after it, too. Wasn’t just during it.
” As an example, Jasi.